updated 02:55 pm EDT, Tue May 17, 2011

Google Fiber confirmed for Kansas City, MS

Google on Tuesday expanded its Google Fiber ultra high-speed broadband service to Kansas City, Missouri. This comes a month and a half after it announced the same undertaking across the river in Kansas City, Kansas. Service that promises Internet speeds as much as 100 times faster, at 1Gbps, would begin sometime in 2012.

The software giant will work with Kansas City, Missouri mayor Sly James, the city's government and Kansas City Power & Light, the world's first investor-owned utility. Kansas City, Missouri officials believe the region's similarity to other US cities will allow Google to learn valuable new lessons in how to more efficiently apply its Google Fiber network in other locations.

Google Fiber isn't an Internet provider in itself and will let other companies run off of the network. It was originally conceived as a test project to show the potential of search and Internet apps with very high speed Internet access, such as very high quality video calls.